


Parabolic

by ERNest



Series: diagonal fall [4]
Category: Alice's Adventures in Wonderland & Related Fandoms, Wonderland: A New Alice - Murphy/Boyd/Wildhorn
Genre: Avoidance, Guilt, Memory Loss, Unreliable Narrator
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-07
Updated: 2013-06-07
Packaged: 2017-12-14 05:16:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 616
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/833170
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ERNest/pseuds/ERNest
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What you do is what you are.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

He’s just a dishwasher, that’s all he is, because he does the dishes and what you do is who you are (that’s not what he remembers telling her, but then he clamps down on that before he can even think her name).  
He has bruises and no idea where they come from. His teeth carry the memory of having been jarred and so he has to drink jasmine because anything stronger _hurts_. (Nothing can hurt as much as a foggy betrayal, or the sense that possibly he was the real traitor.)  
But it doesn’t matter what he can and can’t eat or whether it hurts to sit, because he has a pile of dirty plates and one irritating speck of crumb cake cemented to the china with cherry filling. (Never mind that no teatable is complete without clutter, but this impossible task is easier than looking at someone who won’t look _back_.)  
He knows that in a situation like this, he needs to be soft, because trying to scour the mess away will tear at everything surrounding the problem and solve absolutely nothing. (He closes his eyes and sees her so clearly, red halo, green whisper; and he is sorry, he is so /sorry/ but he wishes he could understand what he’s sorry for.)  
This isn’t _working_. He sets the plate down carefully, and buries his head in his hands. Somehow everything he does is wrong. (It wasn’t always, he thinks he remembers, there used to be lobster quadrilles and quests to discover sugar bowls. Back then, she smiled madly and just for him.)  
There was a time when his biggest problems were crumbs in the butter and he still misses those days, sometimes, but he’s grown up. (Today, the dishes can wash themselves.)


	2. Asymptotic

He picks out a swirly cookie with a dab of red jelly in the center. These have always been his favorite and now they are the symbol for her at the middle of everything with all of the fiends rushing to do whatever she requires, tripping over themselves to make her look even more magnificent.  
He starts to take a bite and all at once something _slams_ into him and he sees a shadowy someone, but it wouldn’t be what he thinks because he knows for a fact that she is all the way down at the other side of the table. He closes his eyes and twitches, and at least the hallucination goes away. After a few seconds more, his heart starts up, thundering against his rib cage to make up for the shock it has received. He raises a hand to his mouth, which still hurts beyond measure. A mere figment of the imagination couldn’t have done this to him, but there is no reason for it to be memory. When could something like that have happened? He’d _remember_ , because she _promised_ him that he’d remember.  
He pushes his way through the crowd that has suddenly appeared, to ask her if she put something in the refreshments to jar people out of complacency. It’s probably something like that, he thinks, and he’s eager to laugh once he’s in on the joke. But by the time he makes it to where he saw her, there is no trace of her, and the fiends just shrug and shake their heads when he asks. It’s okay, she’s probably busy, or she doesn’t want to talk to him for some reason.  
He sits in the nearest chair because his legs will not support him. He doesn’t usually drink jasmine in the middle of the day, not if there’s no emergency. But he’s pretty sure that it’s his only option, because anything stronger will _hurt_.


End file.
